Tatum and Denim blog

Filed under: Gaming

Hey, there’s this new game out today called Bioshock — we hear it’s, like, the best thing ever made. Metacritic rated it at 97 / 100, which ranks it among the greatest works of modern art including Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain and the first NKOTB record. We know you want it, and we’ll happily send you on your way with a copy of Bioshock and an Xbox to play it on. Just read the rules below and promise yourself you won’t play it at night, because this game is all sorts of messed up in the dark.

The rules (yeah, there are always rules):

• Leave a comment below — tell us your current fave game. No need to tell us whether Bioshock is likely to charm you into never ever playing it again.
• You may only enter this specific giveaway once. If you enter this giveaway more than once you’ll be automatically disqualified, etc. (Yes, we have robots that thoroughly check to ensure fairness.) In other words, be careful when commenting and if you submit more than once, only activate one comment, ok?
• If you enter more than once, only activate one comment — otherwise we’ll chase you down and drain your Adam with a giant needle.
• Contest is open to anyone worldwide!
• Winner will be chosen randomly.
• Entries can be submitted until 11:59pm EDT on Sunday, August 26th.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Gaming

It appears the Xbox 360 rumor mill is hard-partying once again, this time over the fairly sketchy information that in addition to the European price cut we mentioned earlier, the game system may be receiving a “changing of the guard” on the SKU front, with the dismissal of the Core system, and the inclusion of a new “Arcade” package. Word on Box Street is that Microsoft is about to upend the low-impact Core units, add an HDMI port, throw five free XBLA games in the mix, slap on a wireless controller, and put a new line of text somewhere on the box. Otherwise the system will remain the same — AKA no hard drive, white finish, and a target of constant ridicule by your friends, and will be made available for €279 (or about $376). The whole thing makes you wonder if this could have something to do with that discontinued SKU rumor we keep hearing about in the US. Can’t wait to find out? Join the club.

[Via Joystiq]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Gaming

Yeah, we too are a bit miffed at why you’d want your Xbox 360 to look more like, well, itself, but a modder over at Xbox-Scene apparently felt that Microsoft simply stopped short of the goal. The customized machine sports an Xbox 360-themed grill insert, a host of internal green LEDs, an Xbox 360 controller emblem, and an internalized WiFi adapter. Click on for a few more snapshots, and don’t be surprised if this guy hears from Redmond about a future in console design.

[Thanks, Christian]

Continue reading Xbox 360 modded to look more like… an Xbox 360?

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Gaming

Most people pop across the border for a good time. Engadget editors interpret that good time as a chance to check out rip offs like this $28 “X-Game 360.” No bonus points here for spotting the inspiration behind this KIRF. All we wanna know is, what’re the chances it comes with HDMI?

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Announcements, Gaming

We know you’ve been dying to find out who’s taking home that super rare signed 300-Edition Xbox 360 Elite. Well, you can all officially bum rush Erik Burgardt, since he’s the lucky sucker taking this thing home.

Just for good measure, in addition to the signed Xbox and 300 HD DVD, Microsoft also hooked him up with a copy of Forza 2, Crackdown, a year’s Xbox Live service, and 1600 Microsoft points. Congrats Erik, everyone — including and especially us — is incredibly jealous.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Gaming

Well it appears that despite all of our wishing, hoping, and positive-thinking exercises, Microsoft has failed to deliver on a small dream of ours, namely, 65nm chips for the new HDMI-rocking Xbox 360 Premiums. Despite signs pointing otherwise, new photos show that this batch of systems continue to carry the Zephyr motherboard layout, which uses the older, hotter 90nm chips, though the boys in Redmond have addressed the heat issue a little bit with the addition of a second “daughter” heatsink attached to the CPU by heatpipe. The new 65nm “Falcon” boards — which chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) confirmed are in production — are still on their way according to the rumor mill, slated for release sometime this Fall. Interestingly, Microsoft and TSMC have just laid plans to produce the Xbox’s graphics-memory subsystem using the chip manufacturer’s 90nm embedded DRAM spec. We won’t speculate on when we’ll start seeing that addition appear, however.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Gaming

Clearly due to the current heat on Microsoft concerning the Xbox 360 RROD, disk scratching, and overheating scandals, Sony’s Dave Karraker is mooning on the company’s official blog over a recent PS3 Vault “stress test” called “How to kill a PS3 console” which showed the company’s game system to be surprisingly resilient in the face of extreme conditions. “A lot of noise has been made recently about the reliability issues of one of our competitor’s systems,” Karraker said, then went on to kick some sand in Redmond’s eye by adding “Did it fail? Nope. Like the Energizer Bunny, it kept going and going and going.” Admittedly, the tests — which included running games and Blu-ray movies for 108 hours in a typical “living room” environment, placing the console in a freezer van then lowering the temperature from 50 degrees to zero, and powering the PS3 in a sauna where heat increased from 100 degrees to 120 degrees over a nearly three-day session — were quite extreme. In the end, however, the testers say besides being “extremely hot” after coming out of the sauna, the system is running fine and back in regular use. Microsoft, the ball’s in your court.

[Via DailyTech]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Gaming

We’re not going to mince words — this post goes out to everybody in the audience that wanted a little closer look at the Xbox 360 Halo 3 Special Edition console due out next month. Enjoy the eye candy!

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Gaming

Just two days after learning that the oh-so-covetable Halo 3-themed Xbox 360 would be landing next month, EBGames now has the console available for pre-order. Currently, the site is listing September 16th as the official ship date, but we wouldn’t put too much stock into that number just yet. Coincidentally, Microsoft has also made known today that “over one million” copies of Halo 3 have been reserved in North America, which reportedly shatters “pre-order records in the video game industry.” Also noteworthy is the tidbit about the “exclusive Halo 3 Gamer Pics and Theme” that comes bundled in with the special edition package, and while we doubt this minutiae will sway you one way or another, at least you now know precisely what your $399.99 will be buying.

Read - Halo 3 Xbox 360 pre-order
Read - Halo 3 title exceeds one million pre-orders

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Gaming

It wouldn’t be a legitimate discontinuation rumor without an incredibly blurry picture as proof, now would it? In yet another disputable case of “is the Xbox 360 Core model on its way out,” a certain Target employee apparently snapped a picture of horrific quality showing the “Xbox 360 Core Hardware Sys” with a “Discontinued” status. The shot was reportedly taken from one of the store’s oh-so-knowledgeable PDAs, and while there’s obviously no confirmation either way just yet, this tidbit does substantiate the questionable Best Buy slip. Ah well, it’s not like we won’t have yet another iteration coming up soon to ease the pain if this proves accurate.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Gaming

Remember way back when we broke the big news on the Xbox 360 Elite — and one of the bits we mentioned was that after a while Microsoft was going to burn through its Premium SKU stock and eventually add HDMI to the mid-range model? Or that again, recently, another source of ours confirmed the same? Well it seems Ars heard the same thing from one of its sources, and has it that Microsoft will have an HDMI enabled Premium system (with cooler 65nm chips and quieter drives) coming later this month or early September. We don’t know about that bit, but we’ll certainly be waiting and watching this one.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Gaming

It looks like after all the rumor-mongering and speculation, the bomb is in fact dropping on Xbox 360 Premium hopefuls: the game systems are shipping with HDMI. At least one lucky customer who purchased a Premium system at a Target in Atlanta is currently enjoying the spoils of Microsoft’s not-so-secret addition, so hot out of tips and direct to your eyes, we present the first of many you’ll be seeing with the much-discussed, built-in HDMI port (and obviously the cooler 65nm chips onboard). You can stop saving and start buying — as long as your Xbox was built on or around July 4th, a date which will now be remembered for two reasons.

[Via Shacknews, thanks Tim]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Gaming

Sorry early adoptors (both of the Xbox 360 Premiums and Elites), Microsoft finally made official what we’ve long since known: it’s no fluke, and Redmond will be (”gradually”) adding HDMI out to the 360 Premium models moving forward. Here’s Microsoft’s official statement:

“Yes, we are offering an HDMI port for Xbox 360 simply as another choice in Xbox 360 owners’ games and entertainment experience. Retailers are gradually introducing HDMI-enabled Xbox 360s into the channel to meet demand.”

How do you know if your new $350 Xbox 360 will have HDMI out? Simple enough: according to Microsoft PR, the applicable systems will now sport an HDMI logo, so keep an eye out for that and you’ll be all set.

Update: We also asked if these new systems would ship with cooler 65nm chips and quieter DVD drives, but all we got back was the usual song and dance about “not commenting on details of specific components or manufacturing processes.” In other words, if you want to see if Microsoft switched out their chips, you’ll likely have to run to the store, buy another Xbox, and tear it down for yourself, because Xbox isn’t engaging consumers otherwise.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Gaming

Ohhh big surprise, Microsoft just announced a price drop on the 360 lineup. Retailers will knock $50 off the Premium systems (bringing it to $350), $30 off the Elite (down to $450), and $20 off the Core (bringing it to $280). Expect it to take effect this Wednesday, the 8th. Buy, buy, buy, people. Oh, let’s briefly review how many of Microsoft’s retail partners had a difficult time keeping Redmond’s big secret.

Read - GameStop can’t hold it in
Read - Circuit City, loose lips sink console price drops
Read - Best Buy thinks the Core system won’t be around much longer
Read - Toys R Us won’t keep a secret
Read - Wal-Mart’s a blabbermouth
Read - The Hollywood Reporter even heard about this thing
Read - Oh, here’s the official release

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Gaming

Amidst all of this not-exactly-forthright price cutting going on with the Xbox 360, it looks like Microsoft has finally launched a more organized method of detailing and tracking the process of sending your faulty US-based Xbox 360 back in for repair. Reportedly, the new web portal allows American console owners to register their machine, attach a Windows Live ID, schedule a repair, and track the status of said mending. Additionally, users who register will supposedly receive a five dollar credit towards out-of-warranty repair service should they need it, but considering that the warranty was just extended to three full years, you should be covered for a good while yet.

[Via Xbox 360 Fanboy]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Gaming

Leave it to Ben Heck — warranty thrasher and modder extraordinaire — to point out an incredibly simple (and warranty-friendly) method of checking out your Xbox 360’s heatsink. Put simply, you invert your console, snap a photo (or three for good measure) through the mesh, and compare your image with the above picture in order to determine if your box is rockin’ the beefed up heatsink we’ve been hearing about. Go on, give it a go yourself, and make sure you report back with details of your findings (and photos for extra street cred).

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Gaming

While it still has its share of Xbox 360-related lawsuits on its hands, it looks like Microsoft can now at least rest easy about one of them, as the Seattle Post-Intelligencer is reporting that the company has resolved the suit it faced over its 360-trashing Fall Update. The lawsuit had been brought by Xbox 360 user Kevin Ray, who alleged that the 2006 Fall Update had bricked his console and that Microsoft had refused to repair it. According to a motion in the case, however, Microsoft says its records showed that Ray called the company for repairs again once it extended the warranty, after which Microsoft says it shipped out a replacement console at no cost to Mr. Ray, who apparently has had no further complaints. While the terms of the settlement are confidential, the two sides have apparently agreed to settle it as an individual action and not a class action as had been proposed, leaving anyone else looking for a piece of the action out of luck.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Gaming

While US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement are remaining tight-lipped about what exactly they have seized thus far, a certain modder has come forward to depict his story and explain the experience of getting raided by the fuzz. After agents woke up his grandmother and perused her domicile with a warrant in hand, they confiscated a number of consoles and spare parts around the house before heading out to find the man behind FallsInc. Once locating him at his girlfriend’s dwelling, they persuaded him to hand over everything even remotely related to modding, and he was left with “nothing of worth” outside of a computer monitor and his vehicle. Unsurprisingly, the culprit (or victim, depending on perspective) feels that his “life was taken away by a ludicrous interpretation of the DCMA” as the “little guy” was taken down while mass piraters remain at large. To read his whole account, be sure and tag the read link.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Not only is the console above (which we happen to be giving away) one of twenty super limited edition 300-themed Xbox 360 Elites, it’s — are you ready for this? — signed by 300 creator and comic legend Frank Miller, as well as Zack Snyder, director of the eponymous film. Don’t act like you don’t want it. Go enter the contest (and have a good weekend while you’re at it).

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Gaming

We’re not sure what it’s going to take for Microsoft to admit to itself that the cat’s out of the bag on this one, but that Xbox 360 price drop “rumor” just got a bit more ammo in the form of a leaked GameStop memo sent out on Tuesday. Apparently the stores are supposed to get some Microsoft signage on August 8th, and if for some reason they get it before that they’re not supposed to put it up until the 8th because it’s super pinky swear top secret. A trustworthy source has further confirmed with us that a 360 price drop is in the cards, and that prices will match up with that Circuit City catalog from the other day: $450 for the Elite, $350 for the Premium and $280 for the Core. In even better news, we’ve also gotten further confirmation that the Premium will be adding HDMI out sometime soon, which we wouldn’t mind in the slightest.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Gaming

According to reports, contract chipmaker Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing has begun work on a 45-nanometer CPU designed specifically for a video game console, and the word on the street is that Microsoft is the company placing the order. The Singapore-based chip company, which produces the current Xbox 360 CPU, is set to begin work on the new design in late 2008 or early 2009. The smaller chip would mean lowered production costs, smaller power requirements, and a cooler operating temperature — which would address a handful of problems the current Xbox design has. The newer 65nm chip which the company produces for Microsoft went into production over the last two quarters, and Chia Song Hwee, Chartered’s president and CEO, said that “you would expect 45nm to come on stream about 18 months from that timeframe.” So, expect to pass some time before any major changes beyond the 65nm come… perhaps Halo 3 will make the wait more bearable?

[Via Joystiq]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Announcements, Features, Gaming, Home Entertainment

We’ve given away any number of Xbox 360s on Engadget in the past, but never one with the level of awesome turned up to 11 (or, in this case, 300). Today we’re giving away one of just 20 super rare Xbox 360 Elite consoles printed with blood designs from 300 — but rarer still since it’s friggin’ signed by Frank Miller. The details of what the winner takes:

• 300-Edition Xbox 360 Elite (120GB drive, wireless controller, etc.)
• Console is signed by 300 creator and comic legend Frank Miller, as well as Zack Snyder, director of the eponymous film
• 300 combo DVD / HD DVD (which is, incidentally, out today) to go right along with it.

Look, we’ll admit it, we really don’t want to give this thing away — so make sure you follow the contest guidelines, ok?

The rules (yeah, there are always rules):

• Leave a comment below — tell us your fave scene from the movie. (It’s ok if you haven’t seen it, but where the hell have you been?)
• You may only enter this specific giveaway once. If you enter this giveaway more than once you’ll be automatically disqualified, etc. (Yes, we have robots that thoroughly check to ensure fairness.) In other words, be careful when commenting and if you submit more than once, only activate one comment, ok?
• If you enter more than once, only activate one comment — otherwise we’ll send Leonidas after you.
• Contest is open to anyone worldwide!
• Entries can be submitted until 11:59pm EDT on Sunday, August 12th.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Gaming

And so we’ve come full circle. After accurately predicting that $100 PS3 price drop a few weeks back, Circuit City is back in the rumor game with a flyer that seems to confirm the $50 price cut for the Xbox 360, and even tosses in some info on price breaks for the Elite and Core systems. According to the flyer, on August 12th the 360 Premium will dip to $350, and include a copy of Rockstar’s “Table Tennis,” while the Elite will raid your wallet for $450 — a $30 reduction — and include zero free games. Finally, the Xbox 360 Core will get $20 lopped off, and sell for $280, which might be the end of the road for the stripped down console once stock runs out.

[Thanks, Sam]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Gaming

You can add this to your ever-growing file folder stuffed with blurry photos of “products” or “internal memos.” Joystiq is reporting that a source inside the hive-mind of Best Buy is claiming that the retailer has earmarked the Xbox 360 Core system for deletion in the company’s computers. Apparently, this usually means that a product has been discontinued and “replenishment of the item is not expected,” which seems to indicate that if the rumored $50 price cut happens, it may be taking the Core offering with it. Of course, this also might just be a piece of paper that your annoying neighbor knocked out on his dot matrix.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Hot on the heels of the dubious Wal-mart advertisement, comes the above Toys R Us circular pic, which should add some juice to the price cut rumors. The boys at CheapAssGamer (who snagged the original ad) have gotten their hands on more evidence that the $50 Xbox 360 price cut is indeed coming. Of course, this could be Photoshopped too, but who’s really going to all the trouble of doctoring two separate ads to depict this price drop?

[Via Joystiq]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Gaming

Since Microsoft apparently didn’t suffer enough indignity with the whole J Allard-in-dreads happenings — we were sure our caption contest sealed the deal — another Xbox exec has gone on record making predictions on Sony hardware, unfortunately without similarly high stakes. Xbox director of technical strategy Andre Vrignaud is betting a steak dinner with the staff of Level Up that Sony’s going to hit the market with a $399 PS3 SKU by Black Friday 2007. His thinking is that Sony won’t want to stick with a $599 80GB PS3 as its sole offering, and therefore will drop the 80 gigger to $499 and supplement it with a stripped down $399 40GB PS3 that skips out on WiFi, a memory card reader and backward compatibility. Of course, Sony’s not talking much about SKUs ever since its total PR disaster on the 60GB price cut during E3, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the company is ready to take a page out of Microsoft’s book and go all PS3 “Core” on us.

[Via GamesIndustry.biz]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Gaming

Sure, this one would be a breeze to Photoshop, but the fact that a Circuit City brochure so recently and successfully predicted a PS3 price drop gives us cause to hope. The teensy picture above purports to depict a new Wal-mart ad with that oft-rumored new $349 price point for the Xbox 360 Premium. The EXIF data checks out, so if it is a prank at least they took the time to do it right. No better way to figure out the legitimacy of this one than to wait it out — and start betting on sales boost figures if Microsoft does indeed cut the price.

[Thanks, Brad]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Gaming, HDTV

The already nicely priced Xbox 360 HD DVD player just got slashed to $179. The new US-only, retail pricing also includes 5 free HD DVD flicks when purchasing the player between August 1st and September 30th — you know, the same time period 300 and Heroes goes on sale in HD DVD format. Unfortunately, the free titles must be made from a selection of just 15 pre-selected films which Toshiba considers “popular.” Nevertheless, the $20 price cut makes the Xbox 360 HD DVD player all the more enticing as an easily hacked, USB-player for HD flicks on your PC.

[Thanks, Andrew and PacoDG]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Desktops, Gaming, Portable Audio, Portable Video

Oh sure, Microsoft is kind of bummed about a few things. It just posted a $1.9 billion loss ($1.2bn coming from Q406, when it started dealing with the red ring of death) and its head of Xbox, Peter Moore, just took off (or was fired); the Zune may be a bit of a laggard, selling just 1.2m units in the course of ten months (compare to Apple’s brisk iPhone sales, thought to be between 500k - 1m or more in just a few days), and the fact that “Vista is doing ok, but it isn’t blowing the doors off,” according to one Microsoft-trading stock manager. Still, Microsoft’s bottom line ain’t nothing to scoff at: profit is up 7.3%, with the company taking in $3.04 billion over $51.1 billion in sales in its last financial. These figures are boring to some, we’re sure, but there’s something kind of fun knowing that Redmond could probably afford to buy the world’s beaches at $1 per grain of sand.

Read - Microsoft financials: +3bn hit points
Read - Xbox 360 posts $1.9bn operating loss [Via Joystiq]
Read - Zune sells 1.2m units, hooray Zune

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

No doubt we’ve heard quite a few calumnies come out of the mouths of high-ranking company officials before (yes, even those at Microsoft), but this one takes things to a different level entirely. Just days after Peter Moore abruptly abandoned ship and swam elsewhere, it seems that frustrations are getting the best of the firm’s VP of Global Marketing as well. According to a number of sleuths who used the “bell801″ member name to link back to Mr. Bell, the executive actually private messaged a NeoGAF member who was “especially critical of Bell” during an E3 press conference and blurted out: “And your contribution to society is…what?” Yeah, that’ll show ‘em, Jeff.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Gaming

Reports of Xbox 360 consoles scratching discs have have been widespread for several months now, leading the EU to launch an official investigation into the matter — and Americans to deal with it Uncle Sam style: by filing lawsuits. Mirroring the Florida suit filed earlier this month, two California plaintiffs have filed a class-action suit against Microsoft, alleging the negligent design of the 360 causes damage to game discs and asking for damages in the neighborhood of $5M. Based on how widespread this issue seems to be and the legs it’s had, expect to see some speedy settlements involving a lot of tedious paperwork for affected consumers and a lot of green for the plaintiff’s lawyers.

Disclaimer: Although the author of this post is an attorney, this post is not meant to be legal advice or analysis and should not be construed as such.

[Via Joystiq]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Gaming, Home Entertainment

CinemaNow, fine purveyor of downloadable film and TV content, has recently updated its Media Manager support for Vista, allowing you to use its Burn-to-DVD service, and enabling your Xbox 360 to act as a bridge from your PC to your TV — adding an interesting new option to the media center sphere. So starting right now, you can download and watch your favorite movies and television shows without ever having to let go of the Xbox controller, which could be detrimental to your relationships, but really good for catching up on any episodes of 24 you might have missed.

[Thanks, James B]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Gaming

A clever gent who goes by the name SeventhSon (we hope in reference to the totally ripping Iron Maiden record Seventh Son of a Seventh Son) has discovered a method to alter both the DVD key and game region code on Microsoft’s Xbox 360, at least for the Hypervisor exploitable 4532 and 4548 kernels. If you’re not sure what that all means don’t feel bad, part of this hack involves desoldering your Xbox flash chip — something most of us aren’t getting around to anytime soon. However, for the tenacious and technologically handy, this opens up all kinds of diabolical possibilities like, um… playing UK games on your US Xbox.

[Thanks, XanTium]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Gaming

While Peter Moore wasn’t exactly this forthright when chatting it up with us, it’s not totally out of character for execs to lash out at rivals from time to time. In the latest chapter of CE-Oh no he didn’t, we find Mr. Moore claiming that Sony’s “long-term business plan of being successful in Japan is crumbling.” Moreover, he continued to knock the PS3 by sidestepping questions of why the Xbox 360 has sold so miserably in the Land of the Rising Sun and suggested that Sony was the one that should be worried about “getting outsold six-to-one.” As a finisher, Peter added that he had “built a business plan for Japan,” and while sales have indeed been lackluster, he claimed that “Sony was missing its plan by much more” than he was missing his. Seriously, them’s fightin’ words there.

[Via DailyTech]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Features, Gaming, Interviews

We got another opportunity to catch up with our pal Peter Moore, the man at the top of the heap over at Microsof’ts Xbox division. We chatted it up about the usual stuff: games, Microsoft’s E3 presence, the 360 warranty debacle, and what’s up with all the special edition stuff Microsoft keeps pumping out.

So, any new tattoos this year?

None. Out of limbs. You were there the other night…

What, no chest piece? You’ve got legs, too.

No, my PR handlers would — well, I’m game for a lot of stuff, and then they go, “No, I don’t think so.”

You could do full sleeves, the back…

I think the next thing would be what’s (horribly) called a tramp stamp… [laughter]

So no tramp stamp for Peter Moore, unfortunately. So last time when we spoke with you last year, your competition hadn’t launched yet. So you guys were kind of in a unique position to be the first next gen company out of the gate. Your system, you know you have a lot of second wave titles showing up. Even though the Wii was certainly a phenomenon at last year’s E3, there was a lot of excitement about the Xbox. So now here we are, a little over a year later obviously and your competition has launched, in your own press conference your materials show that the Wii is — not by much — outselling the 360.

Numbers don’t lie!

So where do you think the 360 stands in terms of your competition? You have the Wii that’s actually outselling the 360 and you have the PlayStation 3 which obviously isn’t although, sales have increased after the price drop. So where…

Apparently they have. I haven‘t seen any independent data that supports that.

Continue reading Engadget & Joystiq interview: Peter Moore, head of Xbox

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Gaming

We knew it was coming, but it sounds like we finally know what it’s all about: the 65nm Xbox 360 is apparently being code-named Falcon, according to Dean Takahashi. Stands to reason we can expect long-fabled cooler / less failure-prone / cheaper 360s to be Falcon’s result, but hey, we’d take just two out of three at this point.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Gaming

Like carrion to a corpse, so begins the influx of litigious Xbox owners wielding class-action lawsuits against the Redmond giant. Recently a case has been filed in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, alleging that the Xbox 360 caused scratching damage to discs during “reasonable, foreseeable, normal and intended use”, and while this is the first case we’ve seen since the company addressed the Xbox 360’s other problems, it’s certainly not the first of its kind. So how much is all this disc damage worth? About $5 million, according to the claim, which makes explicit reference to the warranty extension as well as the infamous Dutch TV report on the scratching problem, and offers damning testimony from users who were unable to play their lacerated copies of Madden NFL ‘07. It seems unlikely that Microsoft can hold its ground on this, judging by the recent events concerning the system’s build quality — but only the country’s richest lawyers know for sure.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Gaming

As if Microsoft didn’t have enough hype riding on its forthcoming Halo 3 ultra-blockbuster, the company is giving Halo fanboys another treat in the form of a green Halo 3 Special Edition Xbox 360 and accompanying peripherals. It’s not like Microsoft is compensating for anything, Halo 3 is undoubtedly going to be one of the biggest titles ever, but we’re not sure how long these paint jobs can keep our interest when certain Sony Computer Entertainments are slashing prices right and left.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals

Amidst all the price slashing that’s been going on of late, it’s easy to forget about the minutiae, but those still keeping an ear to the ground for word on the Xbox 360’s QWERTY thumboard can finally rejoice. Microsoft’s Chatpad (as it’s officially dubbed) will be part of the Xbox 360 Messenger Kit, which will also include a separate Xbox 360 headset. The two-piece bundle will run users a modest $29.99, which isn’t appalling, but it is a tad unfair that a standalone unit (apparently) won’t be offered at a lower price point for those who wish to sidestep the headset. Nevertheless, interested parties can mark September 4th down as the date to remember.

[Via Xbox360Fanboy]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals

While Microsoft’s E3 announcement of “Scene It?” for the Xbox 360 wasn’t exactly awe inspiring, there are some brand new casual gaming controllers packed with the title that certainly perked us up. Details are slim at the moment, but four of the simplistic clickers will be included with the game. This could be Microsoft’s Trojan Horse to battle against Wii’s stranglehold on the casual gaming market — particularly if the remotes include motion sensing within, which hasn’t even been hinted at yet — or could just be a nice freebie to make “Scene It?” a bit more accessible. We figure we’ll know more soon enough. There’s another pic after the break.

Continue reading Microsoft shows off new Xbox 360 controller for casual gamers

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!